Square Enix pulls “Hire a Hitman” app that generated Facebook threats

Hitman: Absolution publisher Square Enix has taken down a promotional, Facebook-connected online app that let users target their friends for fake "hits." The app posted virtual threats to their Facebook wall, complete with video of their supposed assassination.

Square Enix announced the launch of the promotion this morning, saying the app allows users to "create a personalized video experience that lets fans put a 'hit' on their mates on Facebook." As manysitesnoted before the app was pulled, a drop-down list in the app provided a number of potential reasons for the virtual assassination, such as "farts too much" or "cheating on their partner." Users could also pick from a number of identifying features for the target, ranging from "awful make-up" and "ginger hair" to "tiny penis" or "small tits."

The app would then post to the target's Facebook, telling them, "I hope you get killed by a hitman!" The post linked to a video showing Agent 47 loading up the target on his laptop before taking them out with a sniper rifle. Images from the target's Facebook photo stream were even integrated into the video to serve as those final "life flashing before your eyes" moments.

A Square Enix representative told Ars Technica that the app's virtual hits were only viewable by the intended recipient; they were not made public. Still, the company said it now realizes it was "wide of the mark with the app, and following feedback from the community we decided the best thing to do was remove it completely and quickly. This we’ve now done. We’re sorry for any offense caused by this."

That's a complete 180 from the press release announcing the promotion, which defended the app as an over-the-top joke. "Despite its seemingly dark heart, the experience has its tongue firmly in its cheek, allowing users to input whatever ridiculous reason they want for their friend to be terminated," the statement read. "Whether it's their bad taste in clothes or inability to get a round of drinks in, the target is left in no doubt as to their 'crime.'"

This isn't the first time Square Enix has faced controversy for its promotion of Hitman: Absolution. Back in May, the company was slammed for a trailer showing a group of scantily clad, heavily armed nuns as the targets of some brutal violence. Square Enix later apologized, saying it was surprised by the controversy it generated.

What must the culture be like at gaming companies, that this sort of thing was (presumably) vetted and approved? Ostensibly advertising is supposed to appeal to the product's target demographic, which honestly is the most insulting part of this whole thing...

following feedback from the community we decided the best thing to do was remove it completely and quickly. This we’ve now done. We’re sorry for any offense caused by this.

Ha, love that weasel sentence. "Sorry for any offense caused by this". Not "we're sorry we did this, it was wrong", it's "we're sorry if our perfectly fine app that 'missed the mark' a bit caused some thin-skinned people to take offense, we weren't expecting you people to be so easy to offend." Own up, Square Enix: it was a stupid idea meant to generate controversy, but it backfired, because your marketing people don't understand how these things actually work.

Attempting to generate controversy like this to gain attention is a tricky, and dangerous, thing at the best of times. But this? This was obviously a terrible, terrible idea. Nothing about it is funny. It's a stupid gimmick employed in a stupid way, but because it had "social network controversy generator" written on it, some moron who lives on buzzwords signed off on it.

I mean, I've liked Hitman games in the past, but this one just... meh. It's trying to paint itself as edgy, and thats not the point. With that kind of marketing, the game doesn't really interest me.

If an individual put something like this out there, the FBI would be knocking on their door, but since a corporation is behind it, I'm sure nothing will come of it. Seriously, though, the mock threat aspect of it is bad enough, but the insults are in profoundly poor taste.

The nuns were fine, if ridiculous. Also perfectly understandable as how how they'd think it was fine - there's basically no controversy in Japan about that sort of stuff in media, regardless of the religion involved.You're just as likely to see scantily clad buddhist nuns or shinto miko in manga, anime and games.

Except this in no way makes me want to go out and get the game, and makes me less likely to purchase games from Square Enix in the future. So not so much with the good press.

I'm also thinking that anyone who's thinking "cool, what an awesome app!" already knows about this game.

As for how this got released in the first place, I'm guessing it didn't have to go very high in the company before getting greenlit. My company has pushed out a few questionable Facebook postings (nowhere near this level of stupidity though), when management put a little too much faith in a writer's unsupervised ability to not stir up a policy debate, when the whole point is to just promote the brand.

Oh wow. I heard of most of these, but #2 on the list boggled my mind so badly it hurt. Love the part at the end: "For the record, I didn't realize this was going to be solely an EA and Sony bash-fest until I started writing. But it is what it is..." LOL

I can see this going over extremely well in the ~15-25 male crowd these days. When you get so involved in something like this, you get blinders that while you see your main target group growing, they are still not the massive group you think they are.

I mean seriously, look around at all the things going on, the kind of shows MTV puts out about either rich snobby people, people that are less than affluent in the hills, or anything else going on. I can see the humor in this, but only targeted to the right people.

It could also be very threatening from a stalker, or to someone's father who doesn't have that kind of humor, then again, anything can be made threatening, including poking someone on facebook, or i've also heard of people getting freaked out that someone "likes" everything they post on, a bit to the obsessive side.

I think they were going for the same type of response as what the transformers movie got, when you could plug in a phone number and name, then Optimus Prime called the number and warned the person that X may be a decepticon. Office people ate that up and phones were constantly ringing with it and you hear people laugh about it for over a week.

With the right group of friends this could be VERY funny, the wrong group this is what you get.

With the right group of friends this could be VERY funny, the wrong group this is what you get.

Agreed. I'd have to see the actual content to judge it (unlike a lot of people, apparently) but the first thing I thought of was, "so are we all going to start similarly bitching about multi-player FPS games now?"

The problem is that Square Enix needs to make sure idiots can't use this app to target people who don't have the necessary level of trust and mutual understanding with the sender. In the right context, an app like this could be entirely non-threatening.

The thing that gets me is that there's ways to do this sort of thing right and make it fun and mysterious without being overtly threatening. But the insulting and uncalled for "identifiables" along with the generic and misinterpret-able "I hope you get killed..!" in a day and age where Facebook spoofing is easy for the type of people who think these types of threats are funny is just ill thought-out.

People had similarly creeped-out opinions on that other Facebook app with the lollipop or whatever it was that used your information to determine how and when you'd die, but at least that was self-initiated and had enough of an element of tackiness to it that it was unmistakably fake.

The nuns were fine, if ridiculous. Also perfectly understandable as how how they'd think it was fine - there's basically no controversy in Japan about that sort of stuff in media, regardless of the religion involved.You're just as likely to see scantily clad buddhist nuns or shinto miko in manga, anime and games.

But this one's just stupid... and borderline illegal in some areas.

Blaming Japanese culture seems like a cop out. It's a Danish developer released by Square Enix, who have American offices and probably hired region specific marketing groups.

I think the nun trailer was an issue because the nuns were hyper sexualized and their murders were sadistically detailed. Sexualized violence tends to make people uncomfortable.

That same attitude seems to have extended to the Facebook game. It sounds aggressive and meanspirited, and having options for targeting women with smalls breasts and other deprecating descriptions comes off as rather misogynistic and bullying.

If you don't like something then don't watch it/use it/buy it. Who cares about the nuns or the facebook app? No one is forcing you to watch it/use it. This is like the PTC not realizing that their TV comes with a remote.

At least when Rockstar has a controversy they stick by it until the end.

I think what they were going for was to market it to people who "got" the concept and treat it as a joke. Apparently Squeenix gave their fan base too much credit.

I think this was a bad form of marketing, but it didn't prevent me from buying the game. I was going to get it regardless. Still, I think that this promotion was wrong headded and it can seriously hurt their image (though Final Fantasy 14 is already doing that for them ).

If you don't like something then don't watch it/use it/buy it. Who cares about the nuns or the facebook app? No one is forcing you to watch it/use it. This is like the PTC not realizing that their TV comes with a remote.

Uh, you do realize that the whole point is that one of your "friends" on Facebook could send you a threatening message. It does become just a slightly different thing than a TV commercial, when it's someone you know saying "I hope you get killed by a hitman!".

I also don't see anyone here saying that it should be censored. There's a HUGE difference between someone demanding that something be removed because it offends them, and someone expressing an opinion that broadcasting something like this was pants-on-head stupid.

Exactly, I think they did this on purpose knowing ultimately they would have to pull down the app but by that time their company's name would be all over the press. And there are sick enough people out there who will be looking out for more apps from them in the future.

I must say when I read the headline I thought the underlying idea was quite funny. But it's a bit like sending a tongue-in-cheek email: if it is worded clumsily you can easily offend the recipient. Here too, the execution (sic!) seems to have been poorly.

I don't quite buy the nefarious "let's cause a riot" motive. I think they just wanted to go viral and they failed.

The issue is not that the content itself is harmful or not fitting the target audience. The issue is that it's designed for the target audience to spread around to people, many of whom won't get the joke. It doesn't matter if the content is tasteless and/or funny anymore when it's being spread around like that, where people can reasonably be expected to use it abusively against others or for other people to take it as a threat.

Quite frankly the fifth and third of those would have been fine if we didn't live in such a prude society. "Oh my god! Hookers and boobs! We're all gonna die! Fuck you Sony and EA for acknowledging that sex exists!"

And the Qu'ran thing is just people not wanting to get whacked by some insane religious fools.

Still it was all fine when G.O.D. was having insane E3 parties filled to the brim with strippers (man I miss them) but you have to wonder how publicly traded companies manage to let some of these ideas escape. You would think someone would mention the term "shareholders" at some point and the PR brainstorming would be toned down.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.